Mindfulness for Children: This is How It Affects Their Development

In discussions about developmental practices for children, mindfulness is often suggested as a beneficial tool for enhancing focus and emotional regulation among the young. However, it is crucial to clarify that the millenary tradition of mindfulness was not conceived for children. The cognitive functions and brain physiology of children differ significantly from adults, and applying adult practices to children can be not only ineffective but also detrimental to their development.

Anyone who offers or suggest that children should be doing mindfulness are only trying to sell you McMindfullness, a sub standard, consumeristic version so often found everywhere online, muddling haphazardly elements from various traditions, that disrepute the profound practice of mindfulness into a marketable commodity with little regard for authenticity or quality. Often the only objective of this is to calm and relax the users and the marketing frequently confuses mindfulness with meditation or just claims that this is really a ‘mindfulness meditation’, a sure way to tell this is really just McMindfulness, the low quality, fast-food version.

At the DeRose Method, our services are exclusively for adults – although we may work with some young, aspiring, professional athletes in special cases. We do not have the specialism or the training to teach children and we recommend that children need the care of specialised professionals to look after their development. 

Alright, with these warnings out of the way, I feel that I can share with you that I am the proud father of a 9 year old boy. I specifically do not teach my son the DeRose Method as it is not appropriate for him. However, as I live what I teach and the DeRose Method has been part of my life now for over 25 years, I cannot help but teach my son the powerful principles of focus, awareness, and efficient communication — cornerstones of the DeRose Method and of mindfulness. 

Therefore, in this article I will share with you the personal insights and strategies which have helped me to educate and bring up my son. It is also important to note that I recommend that my students, who have children, follow my example. 

Early Childhood Development (Birth to 2 Years)

Initial Communication: Sign Language

One of the first challenges a parent faces is the chasm in communication between an adult and a newborn. Therefore, to enhance communication with my son, from birth, I taught him (and myself) sign language. From as early as six months old, before he could verbalise anything, we used baby sign language to help bridge the communication gap. This early introduction of sign language enabled him to express his needs, to reduce frustrations for both of us and to strengthen our connection at a much deeper level, laying an early foundation for the importance of clear communication in our relationship.

Teaching him signs for ‘hugs’, ‘food’, ‘play’ and ‘diaper change’ allowed him to quickly develop his ability to express himself. This approach is akin to developing an initial layer of awareness — being conscious of your own needs and knowing how to communicate them clearly.

Encouraging Effective Attention-Getting Behaviours

While many babies tend to cry to get attention this is not a given. What babies are really trying to do is to develop strategies to capture the attention of their parents. For many babies the most effective strategy is to cry and all adults tend to rush towards the infant and shower them with attention. I was aware of this process, so I subverted it! 

When my son wanted attention I would have preferred that he smile at me. Imagine how much more wonderful it would be, instead of a crying baby a smiling one. Therefore, I used my son’s highly developed ability to find a successful strategy to capture my attention to my advantage. Whenever he tried to capture my attention with any sort of attention seeking ‘crying’ I would simply turn my back onto him. When he smiled, I would shower him with attention, tickles, hugs, anything and everything I knew he enjoyed. 

Within the first three months my son never cried. He discovered that the most efficient strategy to capture people’s attention was to smile at them. This worked not only with me, but with everyone else remarkably well. Whenever he met a new person he would smile at them and immediately everyone would shower him with attention re-enforcing that behaviour. 

These are just a couple of examples of the earliest techniques we can use during early development. I had many more tricks, but the reason why these two came to me when I was thinking about writing this article was that both of them required me to be using all my training in being able to be present in the moment, to empathise with my son’s needs and be able to find strategies that would be beneficial to his development as well as foster a better environment for us all. 

Preschool Years: Engagement and Focus (Ages 2 to 5)

As my son transitioned from toddlerhood to the preschool years, his capacity for longer periods of focus and engagement were exceptional. He could display a level of focus on whatever task he was doing which would put any adult to shame. Therefore, I wanted to nurture this skill and I was looking for ways that would help him remain focused for longer at will. But how? So I would spend some time watching him and notice where his passions were and from these observations I could engage with the tasks and activities he found most enjoyable.

Cultivating Passion and Focus through Play

My son was very explicit in his passions and two of those were city building and buses. So we built intricate cities from building blocks and engaging in creative play with buses and assorted vehicles. Instead of directing his play, I would join in and follow his lead. Most important of all, I would not set a personal time limit. I would simply join in and have fun until he seemed to be done and following his lead we would start to create ever more complex scenarios and look for opportunities to challenge any preconceived notions he may have had. For example, I still remember his eyes sparkling when he realised that buses could sometimes fly over certain obstacles which he thought were impossible. 

During these play sessions, I made it a point to:

• Praise his imagination and creativity, enhancing his sense of accomplishment, self confidence and generally create a unique sense of fun. 

• I felt and showed him genuine interest in what he was creating. I wanted to know more about the cities he built or the stories behind his bus characters, and oftentimes I would offer up completely unorthodox suggestions which he later started to call ‘crazy ideas’ in the sense of crazy good fun. Even today he still calls my mother ‘Crazy grandma’!

• He never liked tearing the cities down, but sometimes we needed to clean the place. So I suggested that the cities had a life cycle and that we needed to take it down and rebuild to make a new, better city using his newly developed skills, helping him to sense and experience his own growth – he never failed to surprise me on how quickly he developed!

This approach helped him stay engrossed in activities he loved, developing his ability to concentrate, for longer periods of time and to concentrate both on tasks as well as to engage his imagination — skills that I feel are central to mindfulness and personal growth and success.

School Age: Awareness and Decision Making (Ages 6 and Above)

As my son grew older and began school, the focus shifted towards cultivating his awareness, helping him to deal with challenging situations and improving his decision-making skills. This moment in his life is really important as so much of his development takes place now, this is when they really learn to understand their emotions, develop empathy, and make informed choices.

Conversations 

We talk a lot. I have a shorthand phrase for when we need to have a moment alone and communicate with each other called the cyclops moment. This is when we get our faces really close together so that our eyes seem to merge and we look like we are cyclops. This is really useful, as he finds this funny and it allows me to shake him loose from any frustration, anger, disappointment or hyper-excitement and bring him back to Earth. 

In addition to these moments we also talk. For a couple of years we rode our bikes to his school and back and we used these moments to discuss what he expected to happen in school that day and then a reflection on what did happen. I am sure any parent will have a similar situation – when I first started asking him about his day: “hey buddy, how was your day?” he would only answer: “good.”

So I turned this on its head. I made this our keyword. If he did not answer that his school day was “good.” I told him that I had picked up the wrong kid at school and we should go back because I wanted to bring my own son home. This mini laughter moment (a dad joke for sure!) allowed him to have a laugh, reset from the school moment and become present on the moment of our ride, in which we talked about what had happened and reflected on challenges and successes. 

More to come

My son is still only 9. My son is already 9. There will be so much more for us to experience. There will be so much more I will get wrong, I will make many mistakes and I will, hopefully, spend a lifetime learning with him; and him with me. 

I hope that one day he will ask me to teach him the DeRose Method but I do not take that as a given. He is allowed his choices and maybe this will not be to his taste. The final suggestion I have is to allow our children to be who they want to be, to give them the support and love to be their best selves. This is what I do when I teach and this is what I try to do when I parent.  

My son and I read this article together. A couple of times my eyes went wet and teared up, a couple of times so that his. I used this moment of reading the article together to double check that I remembered things correctly and so did he. I highly recommend we never stop being aware of the moment we live and share this moment is unique and will never exist again. Use all you learn in these articles to really up your mindfulness in life.

I am off to build another city made of wooden blocks….